In These Times July 9, 2001

Violent Reaction - What do Teen Killers have in common?
by Anthony Chase

             
I recall the feelings of hatred and fantasies of revenge I harbored 
as a teen-ager in the rural Hudson River Valley, where certain 
classmates tormented me because they thought I was gay. The arrival 
of my adolescence was urgently convincing me that when bullies 
called me a faggot, they were right. My good grades, the leads I got 
in school plays, and the encouragement I received for artistic 
ability could not compensate for the fear I felt as my sexuality 
became more and more real. 
Those memories return to me each time I hear that yet another 
teen-age boy has taken a gun into a high school and opened fire, 
leaving his community terrorized and bewildered. I do not feel 
bewildered. The memory of my own revenge fantasies, Bosch-like in 
their terror, return to me vividly, even now, 30 years after my days 
at Van Wyck Junior High School. 
Needless to say, when I heard on April 20, 1999, that Eric Harris 
and Dylan Klebold 
two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, had 
gone on a shooting spree, killing 13 people and wounding 23, I was 
stunned. But my shock was underscored by a disquieting sense of 
recognition. I immediately wondered if Harris and Klebold were gay. 
Nowhere in the early reporting was the possibility even mentioned. 
Not since Clarence Darrow defended Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, 
who gratuitously killed 14-year-old Bobby Franks for a thrill in 
1924, has there been a case of murder by a pair of adolescent boys 
so bizarre and intriguing to the nation as the massacre at Columbine 
High. All the boys came from lives of privilege and saw themselves 
as outsiders, superior in significant ways. Like Leopold and Loeb, 
Harris and Klebold were said to have a unique and dangerous 
chemistry between them; they would never have done alone what they 
did together. Both pairs had a relationship in which one was 
dominantÐÐLoeb and HarrisÐÐand the other passive. Still, in both 
cases, the boys were clearly full partners in the assault. Among 
other details, forensic evidence confirms that Harris and Klebold 
were responsible for a nearly equal number of murders. 
Videotapes made by Harris and Klebold reveal that they were very 
concerned about hurting their parents with what they were about to 
do, especially Klebold. (Leopold and Loeb were similarly concerned 
about their families' reactions, especially Leopold). And it is 
fascinating that although he made the famous tell-all videotape, 
Klebold still took time to erase his computer's hard drive 
immediately before the assault on Columbine. Leaving nothing to 
chance, the technologically sophisticated boy obliterated all traces 
of these files. In view of everything he told on the tape, what 
could he have been trying so meticulously to hide? 
Though the boys left an extensive record of their thoughts and 
plans, the personal details of their friendship remain a mystery. 
Unlike Leopold and Loeb, Harris and Klebold did not survive their 
crime. The extensive details of the Leopold and Loeb relationship, 
wherein Loeb consented to sexual activity with Leopold in exchange 
for partnership in increasingly violent crimes, are not to be found 
in the Harris and Klebold story. 
Gradually, however, in the days and weeks following the shootings, 
some details about what had motivated Harris and Klebold began to 
emerge. Depending upon who you were, it seems, Columbine High School 
could be an oppressive place. It was not until August 1999, fully 
four months after the Columbine attack, that Dave Cullen of Salon 
reported: "Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had endured repeated 
harassment due to rumors they were gay. Jocks especially taunted the 
pair with epithets like 'faggot' and 'homo.' " 
I read the phrase over and over and over and began to wonder about 
other boys at other schools. The details were surprisingly easy to 
find: 
  On February 2, 1996, 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis killed a teacher 
  and two students at Frontier Junior High School in Moses Lake, 
  Washington. He had been taunted by school jocks who said he was a 
  "faggot." 


  On October 1, 1997, 16-year-old Luke Woodham killed two students 
  and wounded seven others at Pearl High School in Pearl, 
  Mississippi. He had often been called "gay" by classmates. 


  On December 1, 1997, 14-year-old Michael Carneal killed three 
  students and wounded five others at Heath High School in West 
  Paducah, Kentucky. He had actually been called "gay" in the school 
  newspaper. His mother was distressed at the lack of concern among 
  school authorities when she complained. 


  The pattern has held in the attacks subsequent to Columbine as 
  well. In March of this year, after continuous torment by school 
  mates, 15-year-old Charles "Andy" Williams, a boy reportedly 
  preoccupied with Harris and Klebold, opened fire at Santana High 
  School in Santee, California, shooting 15 students and adults and 
  killing two. He had been derided by classmates for being a "skinny 
  faggot." 
After the massacre at Columbine High, the Littleton community and 
the media all but 
      Video surveillence of Eric Harris and Dylan 
      Klebold at Columbine High School.
ignored any motivations for the crime, easily dismissing the killers 
as "monsters" in need of no explanation, and focusing almost 
exclusively on the survivors. The possibility that a culture of 
intolerance in idyllic Littleton might have contributed to the 
tensions at Columbine was quickly countered by stories of how 
Christian faith had helped heal the community. The eagerness to 
promote this view even extended to out-and-out distortion. 
Nearly everyone knows the story of Cassie Bernall. While pointing a 
gun at her head, Klebold supposedly asked Bernall if she believed in 
God, and the girl bravely answered, "Yes." She was summarily shot, 
becoming a martyr. Bolstered by details that Bernall was formerly a 
troubled teen who had threatened to kill her own parents, the story 
was recounted in the best-selling book She Said Yes: The Unlikely 
Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall written by her mother, Misty. 
Only it never happened. Emily Wyant, the only surviving witness to 
Bernall's murder, was with Bernall, looking into her eyes when 
Klebold slammed his hand on the table under which they were hiding, 
said, "Peekaboo," and without exchanging a word, shot the girl. 
Bernall's murder was tragic, yes, but not the inspirational 
pro-Christian martyrdom that it was to become. Yet Right-wing 
fundamentalist groups have used the story to recruit teen-agers into 
Christian youth groups from coast to coast. The Rocky Mountain News 
continued to run stories promoting She Said Yes as a factual account 
for five months after they learned it was fictitious, stopping only 
after Cullen reported the true story. 
Right-wing leaders were quick to light on the possibility that the 
Columbine killers were gay, with little or no prompting. The 
Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas sent out a media alert 
saying, "Two filthy fags slaughtered 13 people at Columbine High"; 
the Rev. Jerry Falwell described Klebold and Harris as gay on 
Geraldo Live. 
With rumors circulating that the two boys were gay, the Denver gay 
community has been reluctant to speak up. Their dilemma is obvious. 
If the killers were gay, and tormented for it, that proves 
homophobia is destructive. On the other hand, depicting the killers 
sympathetically could lead to a backlash against the gay community. 
Gay people are disarmed, unable to stand up for the murderers, even 
though doing so might prevent future murders. The right, meanwhile, 
can point to the killings in a way that could encourage further 
repression and abuse of gay teens. 
There are those who seem to be saying that if a kid eventually turns 
violent, it proves that he deserved any bullying he may have 
suffered. Many argue that all teen-agers get called "gay" and 
"faggot," that the words are as common as hello or good-bye. But 
persistent, focused torment of an individual because the epithet is 
perceived to be true is another matter entirely. 
Persecution of gay high school students, and students perceived to 
be gay, is endemic. A 1998 survey of 58 high schools conducted by 
the Massachusetts Department of Education revealed that 22 percent 
of gay respondents had skipped school in the past month because they 
felt unsafe there. Thirty-one percent had been threatened or injured 
at school sometime during the previous 12 months. A recent study in 
Iowa indicated that the average high school student in Des Moines 
hears about 25 anti-gay remarks each day. And in June, Human Rights 
Watch released a 203-page report, which suggests that gay teen-agers 
in U.S. schools are often subjected to such intense bullying that 
they are unable to receive an adequate education. The report says 
that the problem affects as many as 2 million school-age youth 
nationwide. 
Still schools typically act as if this phenomenon does not exist. 
Human Rights Watch reports that school officials usually ignore such 
harassment, that tormentors are often not held accountable, and 
that, in some cases, school officials have even encouraged or 
participated in the abuse. Beth Reis, a principal researcher of a 
study of school-related anti-gay violence in Washington State, 
observed that harassment, if not ignored, is typically dismissed as 
"teasing." Sometimes the victims are advised that if they insist 
upon being openly gay, they have to expect such treatment. Joyce 
Stanton Mitchell reports in College Board Review that a survey of 
the nation's 42 largest school districts indicates that 76 percent 
do not provide teacher training on issues facing gay students. 
Indeed, teachers ignore instances of anti-gay harassment 97 percent 
of the time. 
Human Rights Watch also documents instances of physical violence 
against gay teens. Such occurrences are routinely reported, but 
seldom pulled together in a way that would reveal a pattern. For 
instance, California teen-agers lobbying for a bill specifically 
banning discrimination against gay students, sponsored by state 
senator Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), reported being spat upon and 
beaten. In 1999, Jonathan Shapiro, 18, and Matthew Rogers, 20, 
reportedly used a pocket knife to cut the word "HOMO" into the back 
of a 17-year-old junior at Northfield Mount Hermon School, a private 
school in Massachusetts, because the boy liked the British rock band 
Queen, whose lead singer Freddie Mercury died of AIDS complications 
in 1991. "Rogers called it a gay band," said local Police Chief 
David Hastings. 
Reis' study of anti-gay violence in Washington State, which was 
conducted by a group of public and private agencies called the Safe 
Schools Coalition, chronicled eight anti-gay motivated gang rapes on 
boys and girls. In one case, a school cheerleader reported being 
forced to watch while a lesbian friend who had kissed her at the 
prom was raped and urinated upon by the cheerleader's boyfriend and 
his friends. The attack allegedly occurred in a storage building on 
school grounds, but was never reported to school authorities. 
The increase in campus gay-baiting is happening at the same time as 
an increase in the number of gay student support groups, such as 
Gay-Straight Alliances (in which gay kids can find support while 
still being ambiguous about whether they are gay or merely 
sympathetic), and an increase in lawsuits pursued by those who have 
been victimized. The shootings at Columbine High School have 
directly and universally altered the landscape of these events.
In December 1999, for instance, the Boston Herald reported that a 
Sandwich, Massachusetts high school student, who had been expelled 
for making death threats just days after the Columbine High 
shootings, filed a $75 million lawsuit, claiming that his classmates 
had made school "a living hell" for him and that school officials 
had done nothing about it. "The boy, who was 16 at the time," 
reported the Herald, "snapped after 18 months of jeers and taunts 
from kids who called him fat and gay." Whether the boy is gay or 
not, in the "don't ask, don't tell" world of teen-agers, he 
understandably claims not to be. 
The "Littleton" connection was made in March 2000 in Toronto, when 
it was reported that an eighth-grade student had been arrested for 
allegedly making a "kill list" with the names of five schoolmates on 
it. Police came to the school and arrested the teen, charging him 
with five counts of threatening others. He was suspended from school 
indefinitely and forbidden to go near the five male students named 
on his list. The immediate response of the school principal was to 
assert, "our response is to take it seriously and follow up." 
The list, however, was not unmotivated. According to the Toronto 
Star, the 14-year-old boy's classmates said that he "had been the 
target of teasing, with some kids calling him 'gay.' " Toronto 
District School Board chairwoman Gail Nyberg told In These Times 
that the bullies were reprimanded and sent to counselors. Nyberg, 
however, has battled conservative groups over her efforts to ban 
anti-gay language from the Toronto schools. "Opponents have argued," 
Nyberg says, "that if we protect gay teens now, in a year we'll be 
writing laws protecting those who 'wear glasses or have pimples.' " 
And in Washington State, Gov. Gary Locke and some of his fellow 
Democrats have been scrambling to resurrect a measure intended to 
stop bullying in public schools. The bill was derailed after the 
Washington chapter of the Christian Coalition denounced it as a gay 
rights measure, arguing that the legislation denied Christians the 
right to vocalize their abhorrence of homosexuality. 
Is it any wonder, given the realities of society's attitudes toward 
gay people, that gay 
      Teen killers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb 
      with their attorney Clarence Darrow in 1924.
teens are generally invisible, as opposed to their notoriously 
demonstrative heterosexual peers? Yet clues to their existence 
abound. 
Look at the nation's youth suicide rate. Gay males account for more 
than half of male youth suicide. A pivotal 1978 study by Alan P. 
Bell and Martins Weinberg of Indiana University first indicated a 
suicide rate among homosexual males 14 times higher than that of 
their heterosexual peers. Study after study reconfirms this result. 
A recent study of 750 males ages 18 to 27 years in Calgary, Alberta 
revealed that homosexual males comprised 62.5 percent of suicide 
attempters. 
Here in Buffalo, I read recently about a boy from a local Catholic 
high school, an excellent student, star of school musicals and the 
well-loved son of an affluent family. The accompanying photo showed 
a handsome blond youth with a sparkling smile. The story was about 
his suicide. My antennae went up. I knew his drama teacher and 
called her. "Why?" I asked, and she responded, "We all think he was 
gay." 
The whole notion that gay teen-agers exist disturbs some people. Gay 
teens themselves are not immune to societal hate and repulsion of 
homosexuality. This is specially true for those growing up in 
intolerant environments. Some direct that hatred inward. As a 
society we apparently are more comfortable with gay teen suicide 
than we are with gay teens. How different the attitude becomes when 
such hatred and repulsion is not directed inward. 
In 1999, at the time of the shootings, Columbine High School had no 
services geared toward gay youth and had never had an openly gay 
student. Aricia La France, a Mennonite youth worker in Littleton, 
says that one lesbian student told her she had been in class with 
Klebold when he protested to the teacher that another student had 
called him a "fag," and the teacher replied, "But you are, aren't 
you?" 
This story may be apocryphal. But interviews with Columbine students 
indicate that the possible homosexuality of Klebold and Harris is 
used to confirm that they were freaks or monsters--not to open the 
dialogue on tolerance and diversity. The implication is that the 
abuse the pair suffered in life is justified by the deed they 
finally committed. 
Ben Oakley, a sophomore from the soccer team, told Salon's Cullen 
that students picked on the boys "all the time," because they were 
in the Trench Coat Mafia, a clique of Columbine misfits who wore 
black trench coats to school. "The majority of [the Trench Coat 
Mafia] were gay," Oakley said. "So everyone would make fun of them." 

These observations were reiterated by several self-described jocks 
from Columbine High who told unsubstantiated tales of the boys and 
their Trench Coat friends taking showers together, or "touching" 
each other or holding hands and groping in the school corridors. 
Friends of Klebold and Harris insisted that the boys were 
heterosexual, and using the na•ve logic of adolescence, cited the 
fact that both had taken dates to the prom as "proof." 
The truth may never be known. The boys probably had not sorted the 
issue out for themselves. Still, a kind of consensus has developed, 
fueled by persistent rumors in the Denver gay community that at 
least one of the boys was gay. Whatever the case, the fact remains 
that Littleton is a very bad place to be gay. 
LaFrance knows this to be true. She and her husband Ray opened a 
teen haven in a coffeehouse setting called "The Place," in Littleton 
in July 1999, following the Columbine shootings. They expected to 
serve about 200 youngsters. During their 18 months of operation, the 
number reached 1,300. Remarkably, a survey identifies 20 percent of 
the teen visitors as "gay," 12 percent as "bisexual" and about 20 
percent as "minorities." Located in a strip mall, their neighbors, 
including a fundamentalist Christian church, abhorred them. "The 
basic theme was total acceptance and tolerance," explains LaFrance. 
"If you pick a fight or call somebody a fag, you're out of here!" 
LaFrance has worked with violent kids for 15 years. In the context 
of Columbine, her apparent sympathy for the bad guys made her 
immediately unpopular. Given the Christian tenor of the town, so did 
her comfort with homosexuality. "Those who liked us called my chief 
volunteer and me 'Will and Grace.' The church next door called us 
'the hell hole.' " 
LaFrance recalls when one boy, who was sitting on the steps of The 
Place smoking, heard some other kids saying, "you faggot this and 
you faggot that." He asked them to stop, explaining, "because I'm 
gay." That evening when he went to his car he found it vandalized, 
the seat urinated on, and a Bible page left for his edification. 
"He is a really together kid, and he just seemed to shrug it off," 
she says. "Not every kid could do that." 
Indeed not. Especially not in rural and suburban America, where 
support for gay teens is scarce. A gay teen-ager who moved from 
Littleton to urban Denver told Cullen of his experiences coming out 
as gay in eighth grade at Deer Creek Middle School, which feeds 
students to Columbine. "One year everyone loved me," he said. "The 
next year I was the most hated kid in the whole school." Jocks were 
his worst tormentors, he said. He described one in particular who 
pelted him with rocks, wrote "faggot" and "we hate you" on his 
locker and taunted him him in the hallway with: "I heard the faggot 
got butt-fucked last night." 
"It gets to the point where you're crying in school because the 
people won't leave you alone," he said. "The teachers don't do 
anything about it." The boy attempted suicide several times that 
year, and eventually spent time in a mental hospital. "It can drive 
you to the point of insanity. What they want to do is make you cry. 
They want to hurt you. It's horrible. I hope that the one thing 
people learn out of this whole thing is to stop teasing people." 
In the interview, the boy didn't condone what Harris and Klebold 
did, but said he understood what drove them over the edge. "They 
couldn't take it anymore, and instead of taking it out on 
themselves, they took it out on other people. I took it out on 
myself. But it was a daily thought: 'Boy, would I really like to 
hurt someone. Boy, would I like to see them dead.'" 
Anthony Chase is a freelance writer in Buffalo, New York.